Good old Vodafone Ireland is up to their old tricks again. I was just doing some online banking a few minutes ago and noticed that there was an unexpected amount charged to my credit card. My Vodafone Ireland mobile phone is set up to direct debit from that every month.
In December I upgraded my old Nokia to an Nokia N85. It was an unusable piece of junk and it was incapable of sending text messages. It was incorrectly reading the SMS message centre number from the SIM card and it was a locked setting. Vodafone accepted that I could return the phone (by courier collection arranged by them) and that I would not be charged for it. I could then order something else. I ended up ordering a LG Windows Mobile 6.5 phone.
I checked my bill for December when I saw the large charge. Not only had I been billed for both phones but I was also billed for the insurance program which I would never choose to order.
I rang Customer Don’t Care. I was rather blunt: “I have been over charged by Vodafone Ireland. I want my money back by midnight on Monday or I am charging you for the money with 50% compound interest per day”. Believe it or not, that is a quite legal act to do in Ireland. If someone rips you off, you can set the terms. It’s handy to listen to those customer affairs segments on drive-time radio.
That got the agent’s attention. At first there was an effort to make the return payment complicated. I was blunt once again: “Fine; send a courier down with a cheque. I don’t care how you do it”.
One quick confer with his manager and the agent promised the funds would be returned to my credit card today. We’ll see.